1. Ian and I learned that it's really hard to play along with Wheel of Fortune when you don't have the antenna adjusted properly. We guessed "the entrance to a... manatee?" when it was "the entrance to a castle. The fuzz makes counting blank boxes impossible. So lesson from married life: let your husband adjust the antenna. :)
2. We went shopping, which is an event without a car and going to South Philly. We got dropped off at Wal-Mart, ran across scary alleys to get to Target to grab a few things, then ran back to make the bus so we wouldn't have to wait an extra hour and a half and so we could watch the K-State/Texas A&M game. Funny story though, while waiting for our bus (the apartment complex has a bus shuttle, very handy, and free, with rent, of course), we met a Temple grad student who happened to have attended K-State last semester! His name is Ahmed, and he's superbly nice! He invited us over for dinner with him and his friends the next night, and I'll go into slightly more detail a little later.
3. We also found a bad sports bar. Pop music from our high school days, TV's they couldn't change the channel on, they wanted to potentially kick us out if they "got busy" because we were occupying a table. Seriously. If you're a restaurant, don't say you're a sports bar. *angry fist* We won't go back. Plus, we paid 10 bucks for a pizza so we could sit there, and it was tiny and definitely worth half what we paid.
4. We tried to go ice skating at Penn's Landing.
But apparently they are really busy and have sessions you buy a pass for. We got there after they sold out for the current session, and would have missed the last subway train if we stayed for the next one, so we decided to go skating sometime the following week, and ended up going to Cosi to eat some food, so our trip to Old City wasn't pointless (Philadelphia has different cities which are the divisions of Philadelphia. We live in Center City, in the museum district. Ian works in Old City. I work in Center City. There's also University City. Still learning the rest...) So Cosi is like Panera Bread/St. Louis Bread Co. on steroids. They offer alcohol and mixed coffee drinks, but it's the way Bluestem serves alcohol. People enjoy a drink, but no one drinks too much there... basically. Anyway, it was fantastic food, and they were really nice serving us so close to their closing time.
5. We went to Christchurch, the Episcopal Church of Ben Franklin and George Washington. They, however, are very theologically liberal, and we decided it wasn't a good fit. But cool to see and feel the history!
6. We had dinner with Ahmed and his friends. We ate Indian food sitting on their floor with newspaper for a table, used our hands, and Ian cried because he ate the spicy stuff so fast (I mixed in lots of yogurt and drank lots of apple juice, or I would have died after 10 bites). It was so interesting to meet people from another culture, learn their perspective of us, our nation, our culture, and our religion. What they knew about Christianity was based off of The DaVinci Code since that was all they were exposed to. It was interesting to hear their thoughts on politics, society, and faith.
7. I waited on a customer who was a total jerk to me. He probably was some rich guy, and he was buying chocolate for his wife, who had stayed up three days straight with their daughter, who had surgery for Crohn's disease. I understand he was under stress, but he made me feel stupid: "it can't be that hard to put chocolate in a box" when in actuality it was, because he ordered 4 different things at 3 different prices, so I was supposed to price it all separately, ergo, it would take longer. But I feel sorry for him. One, his daughter, and two, he's the kind of person who is like that under stress. So I've been praying for him and his family, and if you'd like to do the same, that's great.
8. It's fun visiting Ian at work. The building he's in also houses the Italian consulate, so it's more security. The guy at the front desk, who's dressed to the nines, has to scan his card and push the button for me on the elevator, so I don't end up somewhere I'm not supposed to be. Which makes it rather exciting. And the people he works with are great, so it's fun meeting them! He loves his work, by the way. He's had so much fun, despite a couple late nights (not as late as studio!) while they finished up a project presentation. But then he could have gotten off 1.5 hours early the day after they sent it all in, so it worked out.
9. We finally went skating, and it was so nice because not many people were there. And neither one of us fell at all! We discovered a cool place to eat in Old City. It's called The Continental, and they've got a variety of food inspired from worldwide cuisine. It's served family style, and it's quite the atmosphere!
10. We found our ACME replacement here in Philly. If you've been to ACME gifts in Manhattan, it's a fascinating store with random and fun books, gifts, little rubber chickens, weird cards... Anyway, this store isn't far from Ian's office, and it's called Foster's *Homeware. They've got all that fun little stuff ACME has, but also really modern furniture, cookware, dishes, handy house stuff. You should check out the web site!
11. I got boots! We found me some tall Steve Madden shearling lined boots, and I've never owned anything quite so warm. It helps, considering it's cold and we walk everywhere. Plus they were on sale, and they're cute! It also gave us the opportunity to wander around Rittenhouse Square and take these fun photos!
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| this is me pretending to kiss the frog statue, at Ian's request. |
12. We found a great church community called Grace Covenant Church. They have 3 sites, and we went to the one on Penn's campus, which is actually in their School of Design building. Crazy! The people there are great, and it seems like a solid church. Kirsten, one lovely lady we met, gave us some suggestions for other churches to try, which I think we will, but we definitely will go back to GCC.
13. I was going to leave this at 12 little tidbits, but I can't not talk about last night and the game! We went to Chickie and Pete's, rated by ESPN as the #3 sports bar in the nation. They serve amazing crab (flavored) french fries, which lead to the semi-famous shirt, "Got crabs?" and have a fantastic philly steak sandwich, and great mozzarella sticks. It's good food, and made even better by the good service, and their accommodating us to turn a nearby TV to ESPN+ so we could actually watch the game. Which was historic, as we haven't beaten KU at home since 1983. GO CATS!
Overall, this past month has been great. There are definitely challenges, but it is all worth it! Ian and I love being married, and are enjoying Philly so much! Hooray one month of marriage!